Good News From London

Sometimes, really good things happen. Today’s tale is proof.

It was two years ago this week that I first shared the music of Patti Dahlstrom, writing about her first album, a self-titled 1972 release. Hers was a name that I did not remember from that era, when there was so much new music to hear, but once I heard her music – years after her four albums came out – I loved it: the bluesy and sometimes countryish shadings in her vocals, backed by some of the best players on the West Coast.

I first heard two of her tunes at the fine blog Ill Folks and then immediately clicked my way to Ebay and found all four of Patti’s albums, released between 1972 and 1976. As they arrived in the mail, I began turning the vinyl into digital files and sharing the results. And then came a surprise: I got a note from Patti Dahlstrom, now living in London. Not only was she pleased that I was sharing her music, she passed on to me CD copies of her four albums that had been burned, she said, from the best sources available outside of the master tapes.

We exchanged notes about her music and about life in general. Along the way, after I’d shared three of her four albums, she asked one day if I could post the final album – Livin’ It Thru from 1976 – as some folks from a record label were thinking about releasing a retrospective CD of her music and she thought that the easiest way to get them the album was through Echoes In The Wind. (You can imagine the grin on my face.) As it happened, I’d already been preparing to write about Livin’ It Thru, and I was more than happy to accelerate my timetable.

The music folks must have liked what they heard, as the wheels of the business began to turn toward the release of a compilation of Patti’s best recordings. And come next Tuesday – March 22 – the CD Emotion – The Music of Patti Dahlstrom­ will be released. The twenty tracks cover half of the songs that were released on Patti’s four albums.

Patti says she’s thrilled, adding that there’s always been some interest in her music: “Over the years, so many have contacted sites about my music on CD.” She said that folks who’ve listened to the tunes on the CD “have said they are amazed at how well a number of the tracks/songs have held up, but then I did have the most remarkable players in pop history working with me. Good talent never fades.”

Good talent, indeed. A page at Patti’s new website – you can buy the CD there – lists the musicians who worked on her four albums, and many of the names are very familiar. It’s almost unfair to list some of the musicians here and not others, but among the names listed in the credits are those of Larry Knechtel, Jim Horn, Michael Omartian, David Lindley, Jim Gordon, Leland Sklar, Tom Scott, Jay Graydon, Craig Doerge, Steve Cropper, Klaus Voormann, Chuck Findley, Don Dunn, Jimmie Haskell and Jeff Porcaro. (That’s just a sample: Look at the credits for all four albums at Patti’s website.)

As Patti and the folks at Rev-Ola put the CD together, I had a chance to play a small part in the process. Patti sent an email one day asking me – and several others who got the same email – if I would go over her catalog and list the seventeen tracks that I thought should be on the CD along with three tracks that had been released as singles in the 1970s. I was delighted, and I spent a weekend reviewing her four albums and putting together my list. As it turned out, about half of the tracks on the CD were among those I recommended.

The first song I put on that list for Patti is my favorite track of hers. “Wait Like A Lady” was on her debut album in 1972 and was released as a single on the Uni label. I don’t recall hearing it in 1972, but when I first put Patti Dahlstrom on my turntable a couple of years ago, I loved it. So when I began putting together the Ultimate Jukebox last autumn, I made sure it was on the list. And when I got an early look at Patti’s website the other week, I was pleased to see that “Wait Like A Lady” was one of the twenty tracks on her new CD.

Patti was kind enough to allow me to share “Wait Like A Lady” this week, and before we head to the music, I’ll let her have the last word about her CD:

“I just feel so blessed that this is happening,” she said, “another in a long line of wonderful events in my life.”

Video placed May 9, 2011.

A Six-Pack from the Ultimate Jukebox, No. 8
“Down By The River” by Buddy Miles from Them Changes [1970]
“Long Long Time” by Linda Ronstadt, Capitol 2846 [1970]
“Mother Freedom” by Bread from Baby I’m-A Want You [1971]
“Wait Like A Lady” by Patti Dahlstrom from Patti Dahlstrom [1972]
“The Boys Are Back In Town” by Thin Lizzy from Jailbreak [1976]
“South Side” by Moby with Gwen Stefani from Play [1999]

About a month after I started this blog, I wrote:

“There was a half-second of empty air after the commercial ended. A softly strummed guitar broke the silence, and then, above that, came the moan of an electric guitar playing one long note and then a short break of melody in a minor mode. A choir came in behind the guitars, a chorus of ‘oooooh’ sounding as lonely as a back road while the guitar continued its forlorn dance above the chorus. A quiet organ wash replaced the chorus as the drums entered and set a pace, and then a tortured voice sang, ‘Be on my side, I’ll be on your side, baby. There is no reason for you to hide . . .’ Rick and I paused whatever we were doing – probably playing a board game – and stared at the small radio and the sounds coming from its somewhat tinny speaker. What the hell was that? And who was singing?”

That’s how I remembered my introduction to Buddy Miles’ cover of Neil Young’s “Down By The River.” It seemed like we heard the song on WJON at least twice a week that summer, until it became one of the recurring sounds of that season along with, as I wrote then, “oak leaves whispering in the wind, a car’s honk some blocks away, the faint breek-breek of frogs in the low places near the railroad tracks, the laughter of teens out walking in search of something, the distant horn of an approaching train.”

I don’t know that I ever associated one specific young lady with Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time,” but I do know that from the first time I heard the tune sometime during the autumn of 1970, it became one of those songs that will always make my heart ache for a few moments. The yearning tone of Ronstadt’s voice and the weeping strings tilt the record – which went to No. 25 – in that direction anyway. Add some adolescent dreams, and there you go.

“Mother Freedom” is pretty crunchy and not at all what most people think of when they remember Bread. The group had its catalog of soft and often sad songs, yes, but there was a tougher side that you can find by revisiting the group’s original albums. Of those harder songs, “Mother Freedom” is my favorite. Most listeners liked the softer stuff, though: “Mother Freedom” went only to No. 37, the poorest peak among Bread’s twelve Top 40 hits.

I don’t know that I have much more to say about the Thin Lizzy record than I said last autumn:

“With its almost relentless guitar riffs, ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ dares you not to tap your feet or bob your head or pound out a rhythm on the steering wheel. And if you’re in the car, there’s no way you’re not going to turn the radio up all the way. The single was Thin Lizzy’s only hit, peaking at No. 12 during the summer of 1976. Oh, and that line about ‘drivin’ all the old men crazy’? It’s a little disquieting to realize that if I were anyone in the song these days, I’d be one of those old men.”

“South Side” brings back a particularly pleasant memory for me. It’s sometime in the early months of 2000, and I’m sitting at my computer, having a long chat with a woman from Texas. There’s something there, I think, and it turns out she thinks the same. And as we chat, my radio plays a catchy tune that seems like it’s part rap, part techno and part something else. It took me several listens over the course of a few months to figure out what the song was. By that time, the Texas Gal and I had figured out a few things, too. Moby’s tune, according to All-Music Guide, went to No. 14 in 2000, but the album from which it was pulled, Play, came out in 1999, so it belongs here. And finding out what and who belongs where is kind of what life is all about.

3 Responses to “Good News From London”

The first time I ever heard Neil Young’s “Down by the River” was Buddy Miles’ performance of the song live on his “Them Changes” tour. His live performance of this classic grabbed me and never let go. It was certainly on of the top 5 concert experiences of my early teens. I’m heartened to see it on your Ultimate Jukebox.